


5. If You Love, Love Openly

by cognomen, MayGlenn



Series: In The Hands of Destiny [6]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Baze is a little shit too, Children, Chirrut is a little shit, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Force Visions, Gen, Hand Jobs, Hurt!Chirrut, Hurt/Comfort, IN SPACE, Kama Sutra, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Pet Names, Prank Wars, Pre-Rogue One, Protective Baze, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 22:59:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11000796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayGlenn/pseuds/MayGlenn
Summary: They were shy about public affection, almost naturally. Chirrut assured Baze he wouldn't get in trouble if they were seen kissing in the Temple, and that many people would even be expecting it, but somehow they got by with brief touches when anyone was around.When Alussa asked Chirrut, "So have you kissed him yet?" Chirrut spit out his tea with the very lips that had been pleasuring Baze just this morning. Really, he wondered how much sighted people ever actually saw...





	1. Chapter 1

The routine began to develop slowly. Baze couldn’t sit around all day and do nothing and justify eating food at the end of the day—and so, slowly, he began to put his hands and strength in where he was needed. The first time, he pitched in in the laundry, learning the process and helping as he was directed, content to work alongside acolytes half his age or less, lending his strength where they needed it.  
  
Then, in the kitchens, roped in easily by Alussa.  
  
“Don’t hold back on the bread,” she told him. “I’m pretty sure it’s the only reason my arms are so big.”  
  
“My arms are already bigger,” Baze returned, earning her laughter.  
  
“We’ll see how you feel about it after you’ve kneaded two hundred loaves,” she warned.  
  
He’d gone to bed that night with a humbled pride and very sore shoulders. It was easy to comfort himself in the warmth he shared with Chirrut.  
  
From there, it was easy—sweeping, mopping, hauling in wood for the fires in the kitchens or helping to till the small garden, going wherever he was asked. The only place he did not intrude was the innermost sanctums, where prayer and meditation took place. Something just kept him away—some uncertainty, as if he wasn’t wholly sure he was worthy.  
  
Chirrut couldn't remember being happier. He had always known where he was supposed to be, and he had accepted it, even when he missed his mother and father and sister. But now he _enjoyed_ it, and might have chosen this place with all the hard work and challenging lessons and long hours and prayers and meditations over the palace of his youth, just because Baze was here.  
  
When Chirrut woke up for Prime, Baze got to work—of course not all the monks went to all the prayers, and always work got done. Chirrut, always eager to understand the will of the Force, went to as many prayers as he reasonably could, even if it meant leaving Baze. He supposed Baze would attend when he wanted to.  
  
They were shy about public affection, almost naturally. Chirrut assured Baze he wouldn't get in trouble if they were seen kissing, and that many people would even be expecting it, but somehow they got by with brief touches when anyone was around.  
  
When Alussa asked Chirrut, "So have you kissed him yet?" Chirrut spit out his tea with the very lips that had been wrapped around Baze's cock just this morning. Really, he wondered how much sighted people ever actually _saw_. 

But she took it the wrong way: "Oh Force, Chirrut, I'm sorry, that was rude, I didn't mean to, I was just wondering—"  
  
"Seriously? You haven't kissed him yet?" Nan-in said, thumping Chirrut on the back. "Because, buddy..."  
  
Then it became a game.  
  
“I bet you five credits,” Baze suggested, idly, as they caught their breath in the aftermath that evening, “that we can keep them going for at least a month.”  
  
Chirrut giggled. "I should be offended you think my friends are so dumb. But we should make it a gentleman's bet, or I'll throw the match, because of who I am as a person. I'd just start blowing you in the public baths and 'claim' I didn't see anyone..."  
  
All they had to do was keep their hands off each other in public. Easy.  
  
“Chirrut,” Alussa suggested. “Try taking him on a picnic. You know, someplace quiet and romantic — ”  
  
“Have you tried just getting naked and getting in bed next to him?” Nan-in suggested.  
  
"I don't want him to think I'm _easy_ ," Chirrut said, scandalized.

“Also, that’s probably harassment,” Alussa pointed out. 

Chirrut hummed. "The picnic is a nice idea, though."  
  
"I'll help you to get something together!" Alussa offered, and Chirrut was only too glad to accept.  
  
Later, bundled in a coat and seated on a soft blanket on the outskirts of the city, Baze surveyed the bleak landscape as a snowstorm rolled over the distance and although he slightly questioned Alussa’s foundation in reality versus romance, he had to admit that at least the food was good.  
  
“What are you going to tell them about today?” Baze asked, shoulder-to-shoulder with Chirrut, feeding him fruit and other morsels that he and Alussa and Nan-in had worked together to pack. “Are you going to end their misery or leave them in suspense?”  
  
"I haven't decided," Chirrut said cheerfully, laying his head on Baze’s shoulder. "I think they'll keep giving us things if we persist. Like this lovely picnic! Tell me about the landscape. Paint me a pretty picture."

"It's snowing," Baze said, painting a picture. "Not here, yet, but in the mountains. I wasn't sure this planet had enough moisture for that. But otherwise, the sky feels very low, close like a cotton blanket." 

"We should go into the mountains sometime, together. Maybe we could get Alussa and Nan-in to set up a trip for us." He wrapped his arms around Baze. "I promise I'll keep you warm. And tell me about your day. What did Master Ghenuu have you doing today?"  
  
Baze leaned back on his hands. "I was working in the garden, today. The mint was very overgrown, so we trimmed it, and he taught me how to dry it. What did you get to do?"  
  
"I was sorting the crystals," Chirrut said. He was in charge of that a lot these days, since the Empire were mining so many. "But then after prayers I got to teach the new initiates to sing and it was wonderful."  
  
Baze looped his arm around Chirrut's shoulders and then laid back, stretched out on the blanket. The chilly breeze was actually starting to bother Baze less, the longer he stayed on Jedha. Probably something to do with Chirrut being so close to him all the time.  
  
"They sing?" Baze wondered, finding the thought charming. "I thought they just climbed everything and got into trouble."  
  
For all his gruff demeanor, Baze was fond of them—and he tended to be a favorite among them. At least, as a climbing surface.  
  
"They also sing," Chirrut laughed. "And complain bitterly when I make them practice, and ask after Master Baze a lot."  
  
"Wait, does that mean you sing?" Baze wondered.  
  
"Yes, well, chanting," Chirrut said, now blushing lightly. "Which you could hear, if you came to prayers. You know you're invited, right?" 

Now it was Baze's turn to blush. He let his eyes slide away, back up to the clouds. He began, then faltered, shaking his head a little "I… wouldn't know where to begin. Prayers are for the devout, aren't they? I barely know if I believe." 

Chirrut leaned into Baze's chest, playing with the buttons on his cloak. "My singing doesn't really sound nice without accompaniment."  
  
"Well," Baze rasped, after a pause. "I can't sing _or_ chant."  
  
"You can go and just listen, sometime," Chirrut said, reaching up to find a frown at the corner of Baze's mouth. "But you don't have to. I didn't mean to press."  
  
He rolled away so he lay on his back and took a deep breath, and let it out in a soft hum, taking the full breath to find his pitch. At the end of the breath he took another deep inhale, this time letting it out in a distinct ‘ _Oommm_ ,’ that seemed to stretch as far as the fields, and then found a higher pitch, closer to his speaking voice, and let the ‘Omm’ transmute into syllables, slow and lingering and ponderous, unhurried.  
  
Then he smiled. 

"But that's the boring stuff," he said, and sang the song he taught the children today, a warmer, melodic song in the language of his home planet. His voice really wasn't anything special, but Chirrut liked to sing. At the end he asked, "How's that?"  
  
Baze leaned over Chirrut and kissed him, slowly, sweetly, with love. He gently stroked over Chirrut's cheek, and told him, "Not very good."  
  
“You _brat_!" Chirrut cried, rolling over on top of Baze and tickling him and biting his ear. The coming assault was expected, and deserved, and Baze let Chirrut have the advantage, laughing his way into a faint groan of protest as Chirrut _bit_ him! Some monk… 

"But, if I don't have to sing, I'll come. I—just don't want to be someplace I'm not supposed to, or disrupt anything."    
  
"As long as you're _nice_ , you won't disrupt anything. It's really lovely when we all do it together, I'm serious." He sighed and let his limbs flop. "You're never anywhere you're not supposed to be.”  
  
“I said it nicely,” Baze protested, and assured Chirrut, “I believe you. You don’t need to bite my ear off. I promise to be nice tomorrow. Now, what are we going to tell Nan-in and Alussa?”  
  
He pulled Chirrut down to kiss him, grateful for his gentle reassurance of Baze’s place in his life—and in the temple, where he still felt unsure, as if he were only orbiting.  
  
"Hush, you know you like it," Chirrut said, now kissing the offended ear and then sitting up. "We should tell them...that we spent the entire time laying beside one another just like this, that you could cut the sexual tension with a knife, but that you were holding back or I got nervous or something happened to stop each attempt at a kiss." 

He grinned.  
  
“Chirrut, sooner or later they’re going to realize that you couldn’t possibly hold yourself back this long,” Baze said, as if scolding. He curled his hand around Chirrut’s idly, continuing, “you’re going to need a more convincing story. Something with outside intervention. The Imperials came and thought we were plotting espionage so they broke us up...a herd of wild sheep came and ate our blanket?”  
  
"Bees!" Chirrut laughed. "We could say we had a bee problem. We sat down in a swarm of them. Hm, but we won't have any stings, we'll have to explain that. Maybe the sheep thing. Or you're allergic to...the...sage brush? Whatever's around here." 

Chirrut patted the tough grasses beyond the blanket.  
  
“Very unfortunate allergy,” Baze agreed. “I turned pink and swelled up and couldn’t stop sneezing, so of course we couldn’t kiss. Very tragic.”  
  
"Exactly!" Chirrut said. "So then they send us up to the snow-covered mountains, where there's definitely no allergens, and we'll just be attacked by bears, probably." 

"I do love my friends," Chirrut felt the need to add, after a sigh. "It's because I love them that I'm so mean to them." 

“You’re just making sure their life stays interesting,” Baze said. “I mean, what will they do, if they don’t have to worry about getting us together anymore? Aside from the chores they’re probably supposed to... Maybe we should flip the coin and work on getting _them_ together.” 

Chirrut threw his arms around Baze's neck and kissed him. "And it's because I love you that I bite you sometimes."  
  
Baze sat up, amused, still half-enrapt in Chirrut. “Maybe that’s the problem, they’re projecting.”  
  
Chirrut laughed, throwing his head back. "That's it! Baze, that's it. Maybe we should give the game up." Curling forward again, Chirrut traced the line of Baze's shoulders and ran his fingertips through his hair. 

"Your hair is getting longer. Almost long enough to pull," he said gleefully.  
  
“Almost,” Baze agreed, as Chirrut did his best to pull it. “You got me a comb again, so I had no choice. That was the idea, right?”  
  
"It was," Chirrut hummed, tugging gently on the hair like a massage.  
  
He smiled, pulling Chirrut into his lap, just to have him near. “All this pulling and biting. Are you sure you’re a monk, and not a wolf? I feel like there’s some parable about that... a wolf in monk’s clothing?”  
  
"Hmm, maybe. You know not telling Alussa andNan-in goes against my every impulse. I think I'm very jealous and want to make sure everyone _knows_ you're mine," he said, licking the side of Baze's neck and scraping his teeth over the corner of his jaw. "Leave bite-marks where everyone who has sight can see them. Feel the heat from your blush when someone notices."  
  
A freezing prickle of cold touched the back of Baze’s neck, and then his bare hand, and then it was snowing around them, and Baze sighed out. “We’d better go back before we get buried.”  
  
"It’s actually snowing, now? What's the term? Snowballing?" Chirrut giggled, blushing at his own joke, and hid his face against Baze's chest to laugh.  
  
“Eugh,” Baze said, wrinkling his nose up at the thought. “I definitely don’t like the taste enough for that.”  
  
He picked them both up, setting Chirrut on his feet. “You get the picnic basket—Alussa and Nan-in were nice enough to fill it for us, so we shouldn’t leave it behind.”  
  
He reached down to shake the blanket out, folding it in half twice, and then wrapping it around his shoulders as Chirrut re-packed their supplies, and then Baze tossed him his staff, just for the amusement of seeing Chirrut snatch it out of the air.  
  
"Someday, I'm going to be not paying attention, and you're going to kill me," Chirrut said, sounding like a grumpy old man, even though he was smiling as he tucked the staff under his arm.  
  
“If I kill you with your own stick, you probably deserved it. So, bees and goats ruined our picnic,” Baze said, as they headed back down for the city. “Just so I have the story straight.”  
  
"No, it was sheep and allergies. And snow. You nudged a snowflake off my cheek, the gentlest touch, and you were so close I could feel your breath—and then," he sighed, as though this tragedy had actually befallen him: "And then it really started coming down, and you said we should go. I'm never going to get laid at this rate."  
  
Baze barked a laugh, shaking his his head. “Forever untouched and pure. It must be the will of the Force. Fate has chosen to make you a better monk than you are.”  
  
He shifted, putting his arm through the basket loop as well, partially unfolding the blanket so it could go around both of their shoulders as the snow really did start to come down. “You know what you’re asking for is for one of them to just walk in while we’re in the middle. You really should tell them.”  
  
Chirrut's eyes sparkled. 

"Baze, that is _exactly_ what I'm asking for," he replied, laughing. "For them to think we are innocent sweet things who have barely progressed to holding hands until they find us, ah, what were the terms again? Sporting the sparrow? Blowing the boar?" 

Chirrut covered his mouth to giggle, feeling like a teenager saying dirty words. "Anyway, it's the only solace of a blind man to make his friends go blind, too."  
  
Baze rolled his eyes in good humor. He supposed he could deal with one mood getting utterly ruined by a shrieking friend. It was just sex, and it might be worth it to see their expressions...  
  
“I think they know better than to assume we’re innocent,” Baze suggested. “But it is funny.”  
  
They made it back to the temple just as it really started to come down, and Baze was glad to get out of the snow, pausing to stomp it off his boots, and shake it off the blanket before they went inside and tracked it everywhere.  
  
"Aww, you poor dear," Chirrut clucked, feeling Baze shivering. "We need  to get you warmer socks, and gloves, for when it snows. And possibly never let you go outside. Of my room.”

Chirrut smirked. “Should we do our best to look sexually frustrated if we see Nan-in and Alussa?"  
  
And Chirrut waited, making sure they were alone in the corridor, before taking Baze's hands and pressing them between his so he could kiss them. "And would you come to prayer with me, tonight?"  
  
"I'm not sure how to look sexually frustrated," Baze mused, shaking his head. "I'll give it my best shot."  
  
Baze squeezed Chirrut's hands in answer to his request. "Yes, tonight I will. I want dry socks first, though."  
  
"Just give me longing looks. Oh, no, but we can't make them feel as though we didn't enjoy their picnic," he said, still thinking as they made their way to Chirrut's cell—to their cell.  
  
Before Baze could do anything himself, though, Chirrut encouraged him  to sit while he hunted for warm socks, and smiling knelt to remove boots and wet socks and replace them with warm dry socks and dry shoes. 

"Better?" he asked.  
  
"Better," Baze sighed, already feeling  closer to enrichment in life and purpose just from this contentment. "How about yours? You always keep dry..."  
  
Baze leaned back, taking a moment to feel content with his life. He reached out to pull Chirrut against him, into a deep kiss, warming Chirrut's hands between his own.  
  
"Hey Chirrut, I was on kitchen duty and I—” Nan-in swung the door open, waving a basket of extra sweet breads, "—will be back later."  
  
"Damn it, Nan-in!" Chirrut swore, laughing into Baze's kiss. "I _finally_ get this man's lips on mine, for the _first_ time, and you have to walk in on it?"  
  
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Nan-in wailed, sounding like he had run down the hall already. "As you were! Ignore me! Forget I was here! Congratulations!"  
  
Chirrut cackled, rubbing their noses together, and ooching forward to tuck himself between Baze's legs and hug him around the middle. "The jig is up! I blame you."  
  
"You were really never going to tell him," Baze realized, watching Nan-in retreat. "Wait. I think he had sweets."  
  
Baze stood up suddenly, laughing, as if to give chase for the sweets, as Chirrut squeezed him tighter around the middle, refusing to let go.  
  
"And how is this my fault?" Baze took a step, dragging Chirrut.  
  
Nan-in was waiting for them, folding his arms, two sweet breads in his hands. He had been listening. He was now glaring. "Tell me _what_ ?"  
  
Chirrut elbowed Baze in the side. “Your fault.”  
  
"Tell me what?"  
  
"What have you got?"  
  
"Nothing for you if you don't tell me—" and then Nan-in's face lit up with rage, and Baze knew he knew, and he fell silent, and then Chirrut knew he knew. "You've been together this whole _time_!"  
  
"Yes," Baze said, smiling. "Sorry. He couldn't help himself."  
  
"What's your excuse?" Nan-in demanded, trying to keep from smiling. "Wait until I tell Alussa!"  
  
"It was definitely thanks in part to your picnic skills," Baze suggested. "We're both very grateful."  
  
Nan-in turned over one of the treats, begrudgingly, and then looked expectantly at Chirrut. "I baked for you."  
  
"You're just so easy to wind up, both of you," Chirrut complained. "Would you begrudge a blind man one of the rare pleasures in life?"  
  
"Don't give me that crap, Chirrut! You get _pleasure_ from knowing your best friends worry for your happiness?"  
  
"Oh," Chirrut squeaked. "Well, when you put it like _that_..."  
  
"I am putting it like that," Nan-in said, waiting.  
  
"Okay, I'm sorry!" he blurted out. "We shouldn't have teased you. The picnic really was lovely, and we kissed quite a lot, if you must know."  
  
“Yes, I find this satisfying,” Nan-in decided, after a moment, giving Baze a wink and finally handing over the sweet roll to Chirrut. “And I’m glad you guys aren’t really having all those problems. I seriously worried, you know...”  
  
“That’s your own fault for assuming we were so inept,” Baze suggested.  
  
“It’s hard when he tells stories with such a straight face not to believe him!” Nan-in said. “Anyway, what did finally get you? He crawled into bed with you naked, didn’t he. Chirrut! You said you didn’t want to be thought of as easy.”  
  
“Easy?” Baze chuckled. “No. We kissed in the bath. The last time I was here.”  
  
Nan-in spluttered.  
  
"Baze, you're going to get me in even more trouble," Chirrut said, and clutched his sweet bread with both hands. "You can't take it back, I already licked it!"  
  
"Chirrut! How are you such a good liar! You're a _Guardian_ , you're not supposed to be good at lying!"  
  
"Nan-in, my friend," Chirrut said, and pulled him into an embrace. "I'm sorry. You're still my best friend, my brother. I can only be so mean to you because you're my brother."  
  
Nan-in sighed. "I guess this is payback for making you eat weird stuff when we were kids."  
  
"Yeah! Hey, yeah!" Chirrut said, having forgotten about that. "He put a worm in with my noodles, expecting me to notice, but I didn't!"  
  
"I really didn't think he would _eat_ it. I apologized!"  
  
"He was also thirteen," Chirrut said, in Nan-in’s defense. "But the soul of that worm has haunted him ever since."  
  
“A worm, in a blind boy’s noodles?” Baze asked, mock-scolding. Ultimately, harmless. Clearly Chirrut had not died. “It’s because he beat you up, isn’t it?”  
  
Nan-in gave an agreeing nod, shrugging. He reached out and hugged Chirrut, congratulating him. “I’m still going to tell Alussa. _She_ never fed you any worms.”  
  
Baze traded a ‘look’ with Chirrut, reaching out to touch his hand briefly, and Chirrut squeezed his fingers back, the equivalent of sly glances.  
  
“Well,” he said. “Do you have any more sweet rolls? I bet they’d make a fine apology...”  
  
"I didn't lick _all_ of mine," Chirrut offered, wondering if he would have to go without to appease Alussa—and then caught on to what Baze meant.  
  
"I mean, of course, _you_ should be the one to give her sweet rolls," Chirrut went on, going around one side of Nan-in while Baze hooked around the other, cornering him. "And you need to stop going into the infirmary with every minor splinter and ache. She'll think you're a wuss."  
  
“What? _I_ don’t need to apologize to Alussa,” Nan-in protested.  
  
Baze slung and arm around his shoulders, giving him a grin. “No, of course not. But you could help _us_ apologize, and then we could help you—”  
  
“Ahaha,” Nan-in laughed nervously, ducking his way out from underneath Baze’s arm. “No, I see where you two are going. You’re not—I mean she’s—we’re friends!”  
  
Baze gave him a cool look. “So you’re wasting her time?”  
  
“Oh no, no, no! You can’t do that to me,” Nan-in said, waving his hands. “I won’t be fooled into telling you I care about Alussa.”  
  
"So you do care about her," Chirrut said, sliding his staff around the small of Nan-in's back. Baze grabbed it, too, pinning Nan-in between them.  
  
“Of course I care about her, I mean, she’s my friend—” Nan-in tried again.  
  
"I'm just saying, we could arrange for an accident or two. Blind people fall and hurt themselves all the time."  
  
“I have a history of becoming damaged,” Baze agreed, chuckling. “Maybe all the cold makes me so stiff I can’t walk to the infirmary own.”  
  
"Then you sweep in, like the _hero_ , and rush us to the infirmary when she's working. You get to help her, work with her, you know, flirt with her. And then _you_ don't look like a wuss for a change," Chirrut concluded.  
  
“I’m not a—what do you mean for a change?” Nan-in protested, now completely trapped between the two best plotters he had ever met. He took a deep breath, and let it out in a hiss. “I’m not sure that’s a great idea. I mean, listen, I _appreciate_ —but what if she’s not—I don’t want to ruin our friendship!”  
  
"She's been in love with you since we were fourteen," Chirrut assured him. "With how sweetly you sing, and apparently the color of your hair is much to write home about." He held up a hand to forestall protest. 

"Listen." Chirrut took Nan-in's hand and turned him to face him. "I have always had...things I cannot do, and you both have always been there for me. And there is nothing about the other that you each admire more than how kind you are to me—you may not see it, but it's something I _know_ , brother."  
  
Nan-in was quiet. "You know, you are a little shit. Makes me want to give up on you, sometimes."  
  
Chirrut laughed. "And yet you haven't. It's the most admirable thing about you."  
  
“Besides,” Baze assured. “I think a good friendship could withstand—or grow from—such a thing. It’s not exactly like she can run off and move to another city.”  
  
“Baze,” Nan-in scolded. “That’s not very reassuring.”  
  
Baze gave him a crooked smile. “Your singing must be better than Chirrut’s.”  
  
With a hiss, Chirrut snatched his staff free and rapped Baze on the ass with it.  
  
“Alright, alright,” Nan-in said. “If I bake you both some more sweet breads, will you let me do this on my own? I’m not sure I can survive your level of help.”  
  
“He doesn’t trust us, Chirrut,” Baze said, feigning heartbreak.  
  
"As well he shouldn't. We've been lying to him for months." Chirrut giggled. "Okay, we'll give you some time to try on your own. But—just go and talk to her. Sliding into bed next to her naked might get you slapped."  
  
“Unless you’re into that,” Baze said, rubbing his ass—at least they were both out of trouble, now. The old bait-and-switch. “I still wouldn’t advise it.”  
  
“I think we’ll have a better idea of how to carry on than Chirrut led me to believe you two did,” Nan-in said, sounding resigned. He realized, then, that if he didn’t make his move these two were very likely to do it for him. He wasn’t sure if that was a relief or terrifying.  
  
Reaching for Chirrut’s hand again, Baze took hold of it. “We’re going to the evening prayers, that should give you enough time, right?”  
  
“You two _need_ to pray,” Nan-in scoffed. “You’re bad influences.”  
  
"We do," Chirrut agreed, looping his arm through Baze's and leading their way with his stick. 

"You're right. we should have told them earlier," Chirrut added. "But it was fun."


	2. Chapter 2

They made their way to the Prayer Hall before the gong rang, and Chirrut kept hold of his arm, though Baze seemed to want to stop a few times.

 "Lead me to where the novices are, please?" he whispered, and then smirked. "Then you can sit wherever. In the far back, where my voice doesn't carry, if you must."  
  
Baze obeyed Chirrut’s commands, leading him to the group of novices—who all evinced surprise that Baze had appeared on Chirrut’s arm (as if this were a sort of magic trick only Chirrut were capable of) and who quickly pulled him down into their group. Rightfully, Baze allowed, he belonged there.  
  
The youngest quickly discovered that from his lap, he could see much better, and Baze allowed himself to be pinned into place, his nerves a humming, anxious sensation. How could he belong here? Would the other monks—real monks, men and women who had been practicing to hear and understand the Force all their life really allow him to just—be here?  
  
He felt exposed, nervous, but something about at least being able to see Chirrut made him feel better. Maybe he wouldn’t feel anything—probably he wouldn’t. It seemed to take lots of practice—but maybe he could at least try.  
  
"Now, now, settle down. We mustn't tickle Brother Baze during the prayers, so you should all get that out of your systems now," Chirrut encouraged the younglings, and listened to the chaos that erupted as the novices attacked their favorite playmate-jungle gym with tiny fingers and giggles of their own. Tilting his head up, Chirrut let the joy in the Force run through him at the sound of so much laughter, and the relief at feeling Baze _here_ , that this stood just as well for his prayer.  
  
Against so many hands, Baze barely stood a chance, but he managed to fight his way back out of the pile by gently lifting them off of him bodily, setting them aside one by one before they dove back in. Finally, he sat up, dislodging most of them just before the gong rang and they might get in trouble.  
  
The gong startled Chirrut, and the children cooed back to their seats and quieted—except for the one who stayed in Baze's lap—like so many birds.

"Are we ready to sing? Eyes up here, those with eyes," Chirrut said, lifting his staff and holding the pose for a full minute—the children were perfectly silent and attentive—and at the second gong he lowered his staff, and they all began to hum.  
  
The meditative hum really did sound better with everyone together—the young voices in counterpoint to the older ones, the stones reverberating with the tone until it was easy to slip almost into a trance.  
  
Distantly, Baze realized this sound was familiar—he has heard it every day, but he never realized it came from— _this_. Instead, filtered through the stones and silence of the rest of the temple, it had seemed like some massive instrument rung melodically—like a giant running a wet fingertip around the lip of a bowl until the place reverberated with it. He’d been conscious of it, he thinks, even when he’d first come to the temple of the kyber. When he’d been lying unconscious in the infirmary.  
  
It was like some ancient muscle memory, so that when he closed his eyes, it surrounded him. Chirrut was right—it sounded better from the middle. You could hardly appreciate an entire symphony if only the oboe played, after all.  
  
It was easy to lose himself in it, letting his mind drift. The anxiety faded from him. Baze doubted the Force would ever be bright or seem powerful for him. Chirrut could use it as his eyes, as a different sense to make up for the one he’d been born without. He needed it—or it needed him as he was, or—anyway. For Baze, the Force would probably never seem that way. But it was easy, as his mind made those slow revolutions on the edge of the giant’s bowl, to feel connected to _something_ , even if it would never call him closer.  
  
Afterward, the hall was dim—the sun set, and outside the storm howled and whistled such that cold drafts had found their ways through the ancient stone, and some of the candles had gone out. The monks found their way to their feet, a changed group—at least for a few minutes. Their minds had gone deeper.  
  
Then Baze promptly became a jungle gym again—after all, the kids had sat still for an awful long time.  
  
“Will you come every time, Master Baze?”  
  
“First of all,” Baze grunted, half pinned and contorted beneath a pile of pint-sized aggressors, “I’m not a Master.”  
  
“He’s going to come every time,” one of the older boys said, as if he knew all the secrets of the world. “He’s gotta start being a monk, or Master Sidhava will kick him out for being a bad influence on Master Chirrut.”  
  
"No one will kick Brother Baze out," Chirrut told them, stamping his staff for punctuation. "We are Guardians. We wouldn't be very good Guardians of the Force if we neglected the Beings it lives in?"  
  
"No, Master Chirrut," they said, and most of them scrambled off Baze.  
  
"Now, hurry along to dinner." _It's my turn to climb all over Brother Baze,_ he thought, but didn't say. "Master Nan-in made sweet breads for you."

Shrieking happily, the children took off at a sprint, except for the smallest, who lingered behind to give Baze a warm hug and a kiss.  
  
Chirrut smiled, hearing the small kiss. 

"Kid's got good taste," Chirrut said, when the reverberations told him they were alone. "Did you like the prayer?"  
  
Baze picked himself up, dusting off his robes. There were the imprints of many very small sandals, but luckily the dust came off easily. “They like you just as much, you know. They want to make sure I’m good enough for you, I think.”  
  
He stretched out, listening to the wind howling outside. “I liked the prayer. I forgot the floor is hard about halfway through.”  
  
Baze smiled, earnestly, reaching for Chirrut and lifting his hand so he could feel the expression at the corner of his mouth. “Thank you for inviting me. I feel less scared of coming in the future.”  
  
"Thank you for coming." Chirrut smiled, tracing Baze's lips and matching the expression with his own. 

Then he cocked his head, as if listening. "But you are scared of nothing, Baze Malbus. The only thing that ever stops you is yourself." 

He cupped Baze's cheek, blinking, unsure what came over him. "And me," he realized.  
  
“Not of you,” Baze corrected, just as surprised to realize that Chirrut had hit on something as Chirrut seemed to be. He covered Chirrut’s hand with his own. “Just what you’re at the front of. It’s harder for me. I’m sorry.”  
  
Chirrut nodded, searching Baze's surface feelings as a sighted person might search a face for mysteries. "I know. Thank you, Baze. That—makes me feel better."  
  
Baze pressed a kiss against Chirrut’s palm and then turned to head back down to their room—it was now quite late—the chores were over for the evening, and the acolytes heading to bed soon. The others, if they were wise, would follow suit. “Do you think Nan-in made his move, or a mess of things? Now we have a more interesting bet...”  
  
Leaning into Baze and hooking an arm around his hip, Chirrut smiled. "I don't have high hopes. I've been betting on them for years. I say it takes him a month to find the right words and the nerves together at one moment. Maybe two. What do you think?"  
  
“Hmm. If it’s been years, the breaking point could be any time,” Baze mused, putting his arm around Chirrut’s waist in return. “It’s been building, and you and I just gave it a serious nudge.”  
  
Baze chuckled, warmly. “And to think the two of them wanted to give _us_ tips. Is this the sort of irony the Force allows?”  
  
Chirrut shook his head. "I feel as though this is beyond irony. The Force is probably _embarrassed_ , honestly. At, well, all of us. We probably shouldn't have lied." 

But he shrugged and backed Baze into their room, grinning playfully.  "And we probably shouldn't stay up all night reading naughty poetry, but, well..."  
  
“What’s this ‘we’?” Baze asked, swinging the door closed and leaning down to light the candle next to their chair. “ _You_ lied, I just didn’t contradict you.”  
  
He settled down, taking his boots off, hissing a little at the fresh bruise on his backside. “Though I pay for telling the truth, too. What chapter were we on? Or are you going to read tonight while I distract you, as payback for the last time?”  
  
Chirrut laughed, and then blushed. 

"Well, we finished the chapter on, ah, 'Taking the Lignum in the Mouth'," he giggled, and then grew serious, though he was still flushed. "We could try, ah, you know...penetrative intercourse. We kind of glossed over those chapters, because it was for men and women. And you said there's not a chapter that's for men and men—except for the fellatio chapter, I did enjoy that. I enjoy everything with you, Baze. I just, well, wanted you to know I'm ready. Whenever you are?"  
  
Baze considered this, sitting back. He’d struggled with the notion—here on Jedha getting the things they would need had proven to be a little bit more difficult than it would have been on most of the other worlds he’d visited. Maybe he just hadn't found the right district yet.  
  
“It’s a little different for us,” Baze admitted, watching Chirrut blush even harder, and feeling his heart seem to get bigger. “Without the right things, it would be painful. We’d need lubricant, and it’s better—cleaner—to use protection. Even with these things, it may be uncomfortable.”  
  
Baze scratched the back of his neck. “My efforts at the market have been pretty fruitless. Jedha doesn’t seem like the type of place where you can just find a naughty shop in some back alley. The best I’ve done are some...crudely suggestive Jedi statues...”  
  
Chirrut laughed, falling against Baze's warm shoulder, and asked wryly, "What are we gonna do with statues?" 

“We’re going to leave them exactly where they are,” Baze muttered, shaking his head. “I think they were carved from petrified wood.” 

Chirrut reached for his box of personal belongings under the bed. It was mostly filled with hologram discs, but he unearthed a small bottle. "I have some massage oil. It _tingles_!"  
  
Baze was briefly glad his boyfriend was blind so Chirrut didn’t witness his mortified expression.

“ _Chirrut_...”  
  
He had to take a minute to gather himself, standing up, gathering Chirrut into his arms and kissing him gently. “Tingles is not a good sensation for your asshole.”  
  
"It could be a _fun_ sensation, you don't know! You're boring," Chirrut said, defensive and pulling away from Baze to fold his arms, which was what he usually did when he felt stupid.  
  
“I’m very boring,” Baze agreed. “And I’ll give you a massage, if you’d like. A very boring massage.”  
  
He pressed their foreheads together. “I’ll keep looking, I promise. I just don’t want either of us to get hurt. It should feel good. I’m selfish enough to ask for that.”  
  
"Oh, Baze," Chirrut sighed, slipping both arms around him and tilting his chin up for a kiss. "You perfect, boring, sweet, wonderful, loving, gentle, _boring—_ " here he interrupted himself with a giggle. "You're not boring. I'm sorry. I love you very much, Baze. I know you just want to keep things safe. I mean. We could also nick some cooking oil from the kitchens?"  
  
“Boring,” Baze agreed, shaking his head. “Too boring for cooking oil. Unless we’re cooking.” 

“ _Ugh_.”  
  
Baze ran his hands up Chirrut’s back in a long, slow stroke. “Besides, I like what we have done already very much. It’s more than—well. It’s enough for me. It feels good, right?”  
  
Baze rubbed his shoulders firmly, easing the tension out of them.  
  
Chirrut smiled. "Yes, of course. Yes!" 

He stood on his toes to kiss Baze, and walked him unerringly backward until the backs of Baze's knees hit the bed and he plopped down onto it. Chirrut clambered up into his lap and kissed him again. 

"I should have known you would think I was insulting your talents if I said anything." He scratched the back of Baze's neck with his fingernails and drank another kiss from his lips.  
  
“Well,” Baze said, closing his eyes, arching his neck to give Chirrut the best access and angle. “I’m glad you think I have talents at all.”  
  
Letting his hands wander down from Chirrut’s shoulders, he worked his fingers into the small of his back, firmly working the muscles there until they began to surrender their tension. “And that they’re not worth insulting.”  
  
He pulled Chirrut closer, easing his hands into his robe now to run his rough palms over Chirrut’s belly. “I’m a little surprised you didn’t try to get me back for those remarks on your singing...”  
  
Chirrut sighed into the touches, relaxing. 

"Get you back?" he hummed. "No." 

His eyes, though sightless, sparkled, as he traced the lines and shape of Baze's face, trying to count the hairs on his chin with his fingertips. "I was rather thinking instead that you should be granted the chance to apologize for it."  
  
Sliding to one side, Chirrut stretched out onto the bed, with his legs in Baze's lap. "How about that massage?"  
  
“Now there’s an idea,” Baze agreed, leaning down to recover Chirrut’s massage oil from the box he’d produced, pouring a little onto his hands and warming it—and making a faint face. It certainly did tingle, and it had a strong scent. He was glad he’d vetoed the idea. It was fine for Chirrut’s feet, however, and legs.  
  
Baze worked these over with his strong hands, without gentling his touch too much—these were strong parts of Chirrut’s body, that did a lot of work. It’d take some doing to bring them relief. He worked his way slowly up Chirrut’s calves, firmly, until he knew it felt good.  
  
“You can tell me when you’re satisfied with my apology,” Baze said, when he was sure forming words was going to be difficult.  
  
"Mmm," Chirrut moaned, loud and long. He had closed his eyes and sprawled as much as possible in the tiny cot, arms hanging over the edge. "Not...yet."

Grinning, and with a mighty effort, Chirrut reclaimed his legs, sat up, and repositioned himself, lying draped across Baze's lap—but not before he divested himself of his outer robes. Imperiously, he said, "You may continue.”  
  
“Yes, Princess,” Baze said, getting to work on Chirrut’s back attentively, leaning down to kiss the back of his neck when it was bare to him. He worked from the shoulders, down. Over Chirrut’s sides, along his spine—careful not to tickle—and then down to his lower back. He could feel the tension running out of Chirrut.  
  
Chirrut hummed and stretched, like a spoiled pittin, and finally rolled over and smiled up in Baze's direction. 

"You can insult my singing any time," Chirrut said. He scratched Baze's knee absently. "Do you want to lie down and let me read to you? But watch out, I definitely drooled on the floor."  
  
Baze pulled him up to kiss him, before transferring him gently onto the cot, just so that he could reach out—stretching—to get the book, which he placed in Chirrut’s hands before settling him back against him. “You like dirty poetry an awful lot for a monk. I think you’re trying to lead me astray.”  
  
"Well, it doesn't need to be the dirty parts. We could read about how to order a household, for all the not-monk heteros who are reading this," Chirrut said, wriggling until he was comfortable and opened the book, feeling carefully for a suitably boring chapter.  
  
“We could order our household,” Baze allowed, looking over the relatively barren cell. “It would take about five minutes, but we could put it in a different order than it’s in now. Alphabetical, maybe? Chimes, Cot, Rug...”  
  
He settled back, wrapping his arms around Chirrut’s middle and kissing the back of his neck, opening his mouth against the skin and breathing warmth against it, letting his hands wander over his front as Chirrut began to read. There was something alluring about trying to distract him away from the rules for an orderly home—most of which had to do with the placement of color and patterns for a pleasing, harmonious effect—by easing a palm over Chirrut’s groin and waiting to see if his voice faltered.  
  
Chirrut gasped softly, letting his head roll back, but he continued to read with his fingers, only stuttering slightly in the middle of a sentence. 

"Not far from the couch, and on the ground, there should be a round seat, a toy cart, and a game of chess," he said, trying to maintain as Baze massaged him more insistently. 

"Hhhnn. Baze. We need a chess set for our many children to play. Are you even listening?" he pretended to scold.  
  
“Do we need the chess set first, or the children?” Baze wondered, stroking slowly through Chirrut’s underclothes. He kissed just behind Chirrut’s ear, then his cheek as he leaned his head back against Baze’s shoulder. He worked to pull Chirrut’s belt untied. “How many was it again?”  
  
"Hm?" Chirrut squeaked, losing his place on the page again, but he certainly didn't complain or try to stop Baze and his wandering hands. 

"How many children? Or how many chess sets?" Chirrut shuddered softly. "And—uhh, the garden should be a—swing?—and also a bower of creepers covered with flowers, in which a raised parterre should be made for s-sit—fuck.”  
  
Applying his teeth to Chirrut’s neck, along the join to his shoulder, Baze left a faint mark, easing his hand beneath his robes, humming a noise that indicated that he was listening, if Chirrut would like to continue. Even as he did so, he slid his hand beneath Chirrut’s robe to get hold of his cock, skin on skin. He prompted, “A swing, and a place to fuck?”  
  
"N-not that kind of swing," Chirrut chuckled. "Uh, I think this is where we talk about—how a man should, uh. 'He should bathe daily, anoint his body with oil every other day,'" he said, squeaking at the end as Baze's nimble fingers worked him to full hardness. "Fuck. Fuck, Baze, my love. 'He should have his face—shaved every four days and the other parts of his body every five or ten d'—oh," he said, and dropped the book, reaching behind him to grasp a handful of Baze's hair and tug him into a searing kiss.  
  
Baze groaned into the kiss, nudging Chirrut’s knees a little further apart with his own, giving him better access, letting the kiss go on for a few minutes, his other hand wandering over Chirrut’s chest, and up his neck, before he broke the kiss, smiling against Chirrut’s mouth. “You don’t mind that I don’t shave my whole face every four days, do you?”  
  
"Certainly not!" Chirrut said, turning around and kissing him. "I like your beard. The shaving thing is stupid." 

Chirrut moaned, grasping Baze's face and kissing him sharply. 

"The bathing is a good idea, though," he said, teething along Baze's jaw, reaching around to grip his ass and pull them flush together. "Thank you for the massage, my heart's delight. I feel so good. Anything I can do to make you feel the same?"  
  
“I agree. And I enjoy bathing,” Baze purred, arching their bodies against each other, sighing out in contentment. “Mmm—starting to feel very good right now, actually.”  
  
He paused, giving Chirrut a brief kiss as he reached down to shove his own pants over his hips, so they could line their cocks up together for sweet friction, getting their whole bodies into the action. Baze groaned out, quiet, just for Chirrut’s ears. “Lend me a hand?”  
  
"Mm, two," Chirrut said, and then laughed into his next kiss. "Eh. A hand and a half." 

He rolled them so he was on top and had the use of both hands, knowing how mental it made Baze when he massaged his balls, too, and kissed his very sensitive neck at the same time. 

"My Baze. My joy and warmth," he sighed, and then giggled, somewhere between teasing and complete earnestness: "my well-ordered home. My just-hairy-enough man."  
  
Baze huffed out a pleasured breath, letting his hand curl around them both together above Chirrut’s around their cocks, so they could both thrust into it, against each other. He leaned up and kissed Chirrut gently, shaking his head a little. “Now you’re articulate. My light at the end of the tunnel—”  
  
His ability to continue diminished quickly, leaving Baze groaning as Chirrut took advantage of his weakness, his strong fingers gentle as they rolled over Baze’s balls, and he bucked his hips up.

"That's it, my flower, my sun, my home-smell and good-taste," Chirrut whispered, adding to each name a kiss. "Strong hands and big heart, kind smiles and soft kisses. My forever. My Destiny." 

Chirrut kissed his nose. 

"Handsome-face-shape. Wisdom-bringer. Heart-steadier. I love you," he choked out, and at Baze's little keen Chirrut tumbled over that edge into bliss, stifling his cry against Baze's neck.  
  
As always, Baze followed behind; there was no precipice over which Chirrut could tumble that Baze would not follow him beyond, his grip growing tighter around both of them together and his free hand reaching up to grip behind Chirrut’s shoulders, pressing his cheek against Chirrut’s, letting all of it wash over him before he turned to kiss Chirrut’s face, gently, on the brow and forehead and nose and all over. “Too many names. I love you too.”  
  
Chirrut was still coming back from the high, from the disorienting overwhelming pleasure of orgasm that rendered everything in the Force invisible to him but his love, whose every limb was mapped out vividly.  
  
"My light," Chirrut replied, because, never enough names. "My Force. I love you so much."  
  
This time they had a system; he had a towel nearby to wash them with and discard back into water to soak before it went to the launderers (often enough, Baze or Chirrut themselves). Chirrut did the first pass and, if anything was still obviously messy, it was Baze's job to spot.  
  
Baze accepted the towel, and worked quietly to get the last streaks, wiping his hands, and then Chirrut’s, and then pressing his mouth to Chirrut’s palm and sighing out as he finished looking them over. When all was clean, he threw the cloth toward the basin to soak, landing it in the water neatly _without_ slapping it against the wall beyond and rebounding it in from there as he had the first time.  
  
Yawning, he settled back down—perfectly content for the first time in his life, he thought. It would be cold that night, but he wouldn’t be alone. That was enough to let Baze feel relaxed as he laid back, and Chirrut arranged himself in his usual sprawl—over Baze, beneath the blanket. “Morning prayers are going to be so much more difficult for me.”  
  
Chirrut giggled, brushing their noses together for a kiss. "You don't have to come. Or you don't have to be...entirely awake." 

He shifted until he rested on top of Baze, and Baze made sure to pull the blankets back down over his feet (which no longer hung off the edge, after they had fashioned a longer and slightly broader cot together). "Or I can let the children in to tickle you awake," Chirrut suggested with a laugh.  
  
“Maybe only if I start snoring,” Baze muttered, wrapping his arms around Chirrut and settling back. “I’ll return the favor if you start.”  
  
It was only somewhere just before he drifted off to sleep, Chirrut’s heavy weight on top of him, that he realized that maybe the feeling that was opening up inside him was one like ‘home’—and Baze slept with the start of a smile on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it was Cognomen's birthday recently so wish him well!!


	3. Chapter 3

It was only midmorning and it was a great day already.  
  
Chirrut wondered how these things always happened on Great Days. (Which wasn't true, the other half of the time they just added to terrible days, but it made him feel better to complain.)  
  
He and Baze were covering for Nan-in and Alussa, letting them have a few minutes alone behind the rosebeds while they taught the youngest initiates some of the Ten Thousand Forms. 

The younglings were not very good at holding still, and Chirrut was even worse at enforcing it (what could he do, he was blind?), but Baze was actively encouraging it. Chirrut could tell when Baze was pulling faces or stopping mid-pasasana to scratch his butt by the levels of giggling he heard.  
  
Finally Chirrut had had enough. 

"Okay. You know what? Brother Baze needs to learn the lesson of obedience."  
  
Even though Baze had been making this lesson a pleasure for them, the children turned on him instantly: 

"Make him write lines!" they shouted. 

"Make him wash socks!" 

One shouted: "Tickle him!" and Chirrut smiled.  
  
"Yes, I think that _would_ encourage him to practice Obedience in—whoa!" Chirrut cried, as the swarm of little fiends attacked them _both_ , with nimble little fingers and bright laughs, and Chirrut let himself be brought to the ground and mobbed.  
  
Baze, instantly weak to the swarm, remained a upright a little longer until they brought him down by sheer numbers—by then he had at least one kid on each arm and leg, and one climbing his back by means of his robes (and perhaps a wayward handful of his hair, here and there).  
  
“There’s no end to this energy,” Baze observed, disentangling himself from one set of grasping arms only to find another set immediately wrapped around his waist—and tickling. “Chirrut, we have to work together, or they’ll overwhelm us!”  
  
Baze promptly unleashed the rest of them on Chirrut, watching his friend disappear beneath the wave before he dove in, now tickling back.  
  
“I’m pretty sure there’s at least ten thousand forms right here,” Baze confided, as the kids pinned him down. “At least we know they aren’t helpless?”  
  
“Wash my socks!” one demanded, displaying his feet by sticking one in Baze’s face.  
  
“Hmm,” he said. “Seems like I already have. I’d recognize this anywhere.”  
  
Baze plunged a finger through a hole in the toes and began to tickle with a vengeance.  
  
The tiny voice shrieked, telling Chirrut that Baze had got a good one in. "Master Chirrut, help! Brother Baze is _distracting_ me from my _lessons_!" 

It sounded so cute and earnest that Chirrut almost believed her.  
  
Almost.  
  
"Now now, I think we're learning a very important lesson, here," he began, as things quieted down.  
  
"What's that, Master Chirrut?" one of the smallest asked, awe in his voice.  
  
"'Don't start none, won't be none,'" Chirrut answered serenely, and then there was wild shrieking and flailing again as Baze and Chirrut worked together to tickle the initiates into submission. Like any child around the age of ten, they came back for more as soon as they escaped the pile instead of running away, so Chirrut was confident none were escaping too far afield, even though in the chaos of screaming and laughing, he didn't hear the sound of the masters approaching.  
  
"What on earth is going on here?" Master Taia demanded, and Chirrut heard Master Sidhava sigh beside her.  
  
_Oops_.  
  
Chirrut swiveled his head in their direction. "Nothing untoward, Masters, we were simply—"  
  
But then that telltale ringing started in his ears, and he winced, clapping his hands over both. 

"Ah," he said, shaking his head, willing it to stop, and trying again. "It was simply—"  
  
"Chirrut?" he heard, muffled. Maybe Nan-in. Maybe Master Sidhava.  
  
"We were—"  
  
Some of the children had fled, though one grabbed his face. 

"Master Chirrut, Master Chirrut, are you alright?" she asked, until someone yanked her out of the way.  
  
_'No! Nan-in, get the children!'_ he heard himself shout, and he said it aloud. "Nan-in, get the children!" They didn't need to see this. Or else—  
  
_They were in danger. The temple was burning._  
  
"Augh!" he groaned, and collapsed, convulsing as the world around him upended and then kept spinning.  
  
“Chirrut?” this was Baze, setting aside a few children after lifting them gently out of the way. Chirrut looked pale; his eyes were tracking to the side, and then snapping back. He’d never seen this—sometimes Chirrut seemed to look at something, but...not like this. Something was horribly wrong.  
  
Master Taia gathered the children together and moved them away to one side of the room before coming back to tend to Chirrut, but by then Master Sidhava was beside him, sitting him up a little as Baze stayed practically on top of him.  
  
“Chirrut, what do you see?” Sidhava prompted—he knew enough about these visions to know they came from the Force, and served a purpose. Usually, as a warning.  
  
“What’s happening to him?” Baze demanded, crouching on Chirrut’s other side. “Let me get him to the infirmary.”  
  
Nan-in and Alussa came up, Nan-in putting an arm on Baze's shoulder and tugging away a curious child trying to wander closer. 

Alussa was on her knees beside Chirrut, trying to grasp his head.  
  
Chirrut's ears were ringing, the whole world rolling round and round around him, but he heard Master Sidhava, mainly because he was shouting.  
  
"Need to protect the children," he groaned.  
  
Sidhava grasped his shoulders, and Chirrut held onto his wrists, like he might keep the world from spinning, but it wasn't helping, and he kept leaning to the side, gasping. Oh, no, he was going to be sick.  
  
"Monsters in hard shells," he groaned. "It's hot. Burning."  
  
“Chirrut,” Sidhava said, trying to ground him a little more. “What else do you see?”  
  
“ _Help_ him,” Baze insisted.  
  
“He’s dizzy, that’s all,” Alussa said, trying to soothe Baze. “Sometimes that comes with visions.”  
  
“Visions?” Baze demanded. “He’s _blind_.”  
  
“I can’t explain it either,” she said. “It’s the Force, I think...”  
  
Having had quite enough of them trying to coax more details out of a deeply distressed Chirrut, Baze picked him up over Sidhava’s protests, wresting himself free of Nan-in’s grip and turning to head toward the infirmary whether or not Alussa was following him.  
  
“It’s going to be alright, Chirrut,” he told his friend, holding him steady. “Just keep—”  
  
“Baze,” Sidhava snapped. “The details of this could be important—”  
  
“Not as important as his wellbeing,” Baze growled, sounding like a defensive bear.  
  
Baze—it must be Baze—was carrying him, holding the back of his head, but it was too much moving. Too much.

"Baze—" Chirrut began, but then the world jerked and tilted again, and it felt like the contents of his stomach just splashed out, like an overturned mug.  
  
"Baze!" Alussa cried, following after him, trying to break through the haze of panic the man was clearly in, and she cast off her outer robe to clean up the mess that had mostly ended up on Baze. "Baze, it's okay. This happens. Just set him down, please. Nothing in the infirmary will help him, we just have to ride it out."

  
“Then _help_ him,” Baze told her. He didn’t feel panicked—just defensive. He couldn’t understand everyone standing around trying to keep Chirrut talking when he was clearly unwell. If he noticed that he was now completely soiled, he had no reaction aside from worry for Chirrut.  
  
"Ugh. Make it—please, please, you have to let me save them!" Chirrut cried, suddenly lurching away, and dry heaving, whole body shivering. Okay, he hadn't had an episode this bad in a while. He could taste the ash, worse than vomit.  

"Everyone's burning," he said, and sobbed, and tried clutching his ears again as they rang, disorienting him again. Was he falling? Where was Baze?  
  
“Alright, Chirrut, alright,” Baze reassured him. “No one’s burning.”  
  
“Is he seeing a fire?” Master Taia said.  
  
“He said ‘monsters’,” one of the acolytes whispered.

“Perform the Maneuver, Sister Alussa,” Master Taia instructed, and Alussa nodded and knelt beside them.  
  
“I think that’s quite enough dramatics,” she said, loudly, for Chirrut’s benefit, but Baze’s comfort. “Baze, hold him up a little bit. Let his head hang over your arm, alright?”  
  
Baze allowed Alussa to reposition Chirrut in his arms, so his neck was supported by Baze’s forearm, but his head hung down slightly, and then she curled her hands under Chirrut’s head.  
  
“At least he probably can’t throw up again,” she said, beginning to go through the maneuver by turning Chirrut’s head to one side and waiting for the signs of dizziness to start to fade. She explained carefully to Baze, “The dizziness is an inner-ear issue, set right by reorienting him with this maneuver. The rest...I’m not sure.”  
  
“Visions from the Force,” Sidhava said firmly. “Master Taia, Master Nan-in, I think it’s time for the acolytes to get back to their studies.”  
  
He hesitated, looking at the anxious expressions on their faces.  He turned to reassure them as Alussa finished seeing to Chirrut. “Don’t worry, Master Î mwe will be alright. He always is.”  
  
“Is it because we tickled him?” one of the younger acolytes asked, looking up at Nan-in as he guided them out.  
  
“Oh no,” Nan-in said. “Chirrut’s always been a little wobbly, don’t worry. He always gets better, too. He’s too stubborn to let any of this get him down.”  
  
The ringing was still there, and the—visions—still flashed before his eyes, making him start and jerk like he was having a seizure instead of a vertigo issue, and it unsettled his head, so Alussa held onto his skull to keep him still.  
  
"Chirrut," Master Sidhava said, his voice stern and low and somehow settling, almost in counterpoint to the high-pitched ringing in his ears. "Tell me more of this vision. Is the burning here? In the Temple?"  
  
"Yes," Chirrut gasped, uncertainly. And he was _glad_ to be of service, he really was, but what was the Force doing putting _visual_ images into the brain of a man who had never _seen_?

"I think. Y-you won't let me stay with you," he said, a rush of tears falling. He kicked his legs and realized he had someone's arm in a deathgrip, his nails digging half-moons into—

"Baze. Baze, let me _stay_! I want to help, I want to fight them!" Chirrut lurched upright, but Alussa wrestled him back down.  

"Don't you dare," she growled, and frowned at that little eye movement that told her things weren't right.  
  
Baze hissed, feeling Chirrut’s nails carving into his arm—but he was willing to endure it to keep Chirrut where Alussa could take care of him, even though now  he was starting to feel damp through his clothes. He wanted this to stop, or at least to start to get _better_ !  
  
“Chirrut, easy, there’s nothing to—” Baze started.  

Sidhava silenced him with a look.  
  
“The ones you want to fight,” Sidhava said. “Are they saying anything?”  
  
Chirrut tried shaking his head, only remembering he shouldn't when he felt Alussa try to grip his head a little harder. Okay, _ow_ , his head was hurting. This was a bad one.  
  
"N-no, Master," he managed. "Not that I—sorry."  

It was fading, a little, blissfully. Chirrut felt faint, now, shaky, drained.  
  
Master Sidhava sighed, knowing that was probably the end of it. "Time? Do you know when it might happen?"  
  
Chirrut gulped. "I—I don't—um."

There _was_ . Sort of. Maybe. But Baze was right here. Baze was going to freak out if he said anything. But he also didn't want Baze to leave so he could say it, either. He just wanted to sleep...  
  
"Chirrut," Sidhava asked again.  
  
"Brother Baze wears the Guardian sash."  
  
“That’s not—” Baze started, sounding surprised, he looked at Alussa, who wasn’t looking at him—she was still focused on Chirrut—and then to Master Sidhava, who looked grim.  
  
They met each other’s gaze for a long time, and Baze withdrew, mentally, from the idea. He couldn’t be a Guardian—or a Monk! He didn’t feel the Force—certainly not like Chirrut obviously did.  
  
“Anything else, Chirrut?” Sidhava prompted. “Do you remember any other details?”  
  
“Are you still dizzy?” Alussa asked. “Don’t move too much yet, but right now?”  
  
"No," Chirrut gasped softly, "and yes."

He hoped that made sense. He could feel Baze retreating, somehow, not physically, but mentally, and Chirrut shivered and winced.

"I'm sorry," he said, and squeezed his eyes shut. Now that he was coming back to himself, he just felt like a blind idiot who had puked on himself and couldn't even clean it up. "I didn't—scare the children, did I?"  
  
Alussa soothed him. "No, no, they're fine. Just worried. But Nan-in's with them now, he'll have them laughing in no time."  
  
"Good. I'm sorry."  
  
“Let me know when it’s alright to move him,” Baze said, quiet, but—returning to the here and now. Just because it was something Chirrut had seen in some kind of Force vision, it didn’t have to mean anything, did it?  
  
_That didn’t matter right now_ , he decided. Taking care of Chirrut did.  
  
Sidhava sat back, surveying the scene. “Thank you, Chirrut. I’m sorry you had to endure that. Do you want to go back to your room?”  
  
Chirrut tried to nod again before remembering how spectacularly stupid that would be, and instead, "Yes, please.”

Despite almost moving on accident, he was terrified at the thought of having to move again deliberately. The visions were one thing, but the vertigo and the ringing were quite another. He had enough trouble navigating the world, and when his ears failed him, too, he felt small and useless and stupid.

"In—um. In a minute," he admitted. The ringing had almost gone. He ran his hand up and down Baze's arm, which settled comfortably over him, and winced at the dents from his nails. "Sorry."  
  
“It’s nothing,” Baze said, gently. “It hardly shows with all the scars.”  
  
“Here,” Alussa said. “Baze, can you support him like this?”  
  
Baze shifted his arm to support Chirrut’s head carefully, as if he were afraid of doing it wrong.  
  
“Chirrut, don’t shake your head or move too much. I’m going to go get some warm cloths, and Baze, your big strong boyfriend, is going to carry you back to your room. I’ll meet you there,” she assured them both. “If you start to get dizzy again, tell Baze, alright?”  
  
“What do I do if he does?” Baze asked, anxious.  
  
“Stop, sit down, and wait for him to tell you it’s okay to go on.”  
  
Chirrut winced, and tried a smile. "At least I've already puked on you, so it can't get much worse.”


	4. Chapter 4

When he felt Alussa go, Chirrut squeeze Baze's hand. "Thank you, I—I'm sorry if I s-scared you."

He had frankly scared himself with that one.

"I should have told you. I-it's a thing that happens. My whole life." An irrational fear that Baze would leave him because he didn't want to take care of him gripped Chirrut, and he squeezed his hand again.  
  
“If it was scary for me, it must have been worse for you,” Baze assured Chirrut—he was glad that Chirrut was talking _sense_ now. He pulled Chirrut a little closer against him, whether it was gross or not. “Is it really the Force?”

"Not the vertigo thing," Chirrut said softly. "U-unless it's the price I must pay for the Visions. But I don't like thinking of it like that."  
  
“I’m going to lift you up,” Baze said. “Tell me if there’s anything I can do to make it easier on you?”  
  
"I will. Right now you—you're more than enough," Chirrut said. His face was awkwardly turned away from Baze, and he had nothing to hold onto once Baze hooked his arm under his legs, but the motion was smooth as he lifted him up. It was as if he weighed nothing, and his pace was quick and gliding.  
  
"Are we c-close?" he asked, as the world began to sway, this time more like a boat on choppy water than an actual whirlpool. It wasn't worth it to stop if they were close enough.  
  
“Almost there,” Baze assured Chirrut. “But if you need to stop, just say so. You’re heavier than you look. All that muscle.”  
  
Chirrut huffed, but when he went a little paler, Baze stopped, crouching down and waiting.  
  
"Thanks," Chirrut said, reaching back to gripping Baze's robes tightly until the dizziness settled.  
  
“Does it bother you that they try to get that much information out of you?” Baze wondered, leaning back against the wall behind him. “It seems wrong that they don’t just help you.”  
  
"No, it—Sidhava is a good man," Chirrut said, assuring Baze who _was_ clearly bothered by it. "And they're like...dreams. I don't remember them clearly later. Even now, I..."

Chirrut shrugged. "And there's not much you can _do_ except the maneuver Alussa does. Master Taia knows it, and Nan-in has done it a few times."

“I’ll see if they can teach me,” Baze said, squeezing Chirrut’s hand.

“Yeah.” Chirrut paused. "I think I'm ready to move again."  
  
Baze picked Chirrut up again, carrying him the last distance into their room and setting him down in the chair: first, to strip off his outer layers of robe, and then settle him on the bed. He discarded his own soiled clothes with practical efficiency.  
  
"Thank you," Chirrut said quietly, doing his best to be more than a rag doll that Baze had to dress and undress, but it was hard to do much when he couldn't move his head. He couldn't help, through the fog of pain and exhaustion and embarrassment, but think that this was the very definition of love. He wished it would be more romantic. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“Do they come true?” Baze wondered. “They must, or no one would spend so much effort trying to get the details. But if they do, they must try to prevent what—it hurts my head to think about.”  
  
Chirrut swallowed carefully, feeling compelled to honesty, though he would rather have not said. "Th-they do. At least, none of them has never _not_ come true. S-some just haven't come true yet."  
  
Alussa tapped softly on the door then, with some warm water in a bowl and a few cloths. “I figured I’d help clean up. He got you pretty good, Baze.”  
  
“It’s nothing,” Baze said, considering his stained undershirt. “Well, maybe I should do our own laundry tomorrow...”  
  
"I can do laundry tomorrow. I'll be better. I just need to sleep—Alussa, please, stop," Chirrut snapped suddenly, annoyed, as she attacked him with a cloth, and he tried to sit up again, which brought on another wave of dizziness, and he groaned.

Was it too much to desire some agency for himself? The Force used him to communicate: fine. Master Sidhava needed to know of his visions: fine. He was too dizzy to walk, so Baze carried him: fine. But he couldn't undress or wash himself, or even _see_ how much sick he'd gotten on Baze, and it was just—frustrating.  
  
Alussa sighed, and waited.  
  
"I'm sorry," Chirrut sighed.  
  
"I know," she said, with a wry smile she shared with Baze.  
  
"You shouldn't have to—"  
  
"But I am."  
  
This was an old argument.

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”  
  
“It’s not as if you haven’t helped either of us when we’ve needed it,” Baze reminded. “Twice now, if you’ll remember.”  
  
“Once, when we were little,” Alussa revealed, “he told Master Sidhava— _Brother_ Sidhava then, in fact—that he’d stolen food from the kitchen when really it was me. I was feeding feral pittins...”  
  
She smiled fondly at the memory. “Anyway, friends help each other, Chirrut. Let us take care of you a little. I bet your big, strong boyfriend enjoys not having to run to keep up with you for once.”  
  
“I just think of it as returning the favor,” Baze agreed. “I mean, I wish you wouldn’t look _quite_ so gleeful when you offer to help me piss...”  
  
Chirrut laughed, appeased for now, and blushing. "You're adorable when you're embarrassed. Also, I still don't get what the difference is between being in the same room or going outside, since I'm so familiar with your cock."

Alussa laughed, loudly, startled into blushing.  
  
"And anyway," Chirrut directed to Alussa as he suffered her to wash his face. "I only did that to look impressive, and because if you had to go without supper you'd make me feed the little buggers. It was just easier to go without than to have to give it away to pittins."  
  
Finishing with Chirrut, Alussa tossed the cloth into the hamper to leave Baze with some mostly clean water to wash up in. "If you get undressed, I'll take your things to the laundry rooms. You don't want them stinking up the place."  
  
Baze pulled off his shirt obediently, finding that his robes had taken the worst of the damage—and even that wasn’t too bad, in comparison to some of the messes he’d been in.  
  
“Thank you, Alussa,” he said, pulling on a fresh shirt and sighing out. “Can you show me how to do the maneuver that will help him?”  
  
“Oh,” she said. “Sure, it’s not too hard—we shouldn’t mess with him now, but I can show you when you have some free time. We can practice on Nan-in, he won’t get dizzy.”  
  
"But he complains," Chirrut said with a slightly loopy smile. "You can practice on me, too. Just. Not now."  
  
"Hey, everyone!" said a voice just outside.  
  
"Speak of the devil..." Chirrut hummed.  
  
"This handsome devil," Nan-in cut in without missing a beat, "brought you some tea and plain rice, and some soup for your boyfriend, so you better thank me. The initiates are busy building you a get-well card, Chirrut, so you'll be glad to know your bids for attention are working. It's actually very sweet, last I saw they were gluing string to parchment in the shapes of words. Mostly words. Attempts at words. Alussa, if I mentioned how lovely your hands are at work, would you hold them against me?"  
  
"Force help me, he never stops talking," Alussa muttered to Baze, hoping for sympathy, though she was blushing.  
  
“You should tell him your hands just cleaned barf off our favourite guardian,” Baze suggested, sotto voce, “but only after you touch his face with them.”  
  
“You have such an innocent face,” Nan-in said, looking appalled. “I mean, really, it says you’re trustworthy and stalwart and can be relied on. But I know the truth—you’re evil.”  
  
Baze chuckled. “Thank you for the soup.”  
  
Nan-in put the rest of the tray in Chirrut’s hands, used to his preference to take care of himself at least a little after these spells. “How are you feeling, Chirrut?”  
  
"Thanks," Chirrut said, as something tray-shaped landed across his lap. Nan-in didn't baby him, which he appreciated, even if there was no way he was going to actually be able to feed himself any time soon. It was the thought that counted. And the tray was warm. Why couldn't he get warm? “I’m most definitely alive.”  
  
"All right, I'll be by to check on you later," Alussa said, going out with Nan-in, handing him the basket of dirty laundry to carry.  
  
"You're leaving me?" Nan-in asked her, sounding hurt.  
  
"Who says I was ever with you?" she replied, but they left together.  
  
Chirrut's smile faded a bit as they left, perhaps because he felt safer with Baze, or perhaps because he still felt awful _for_ Baze.

"I should have told you I had these before one happened. I'm sorry I scared you," he said quietly, and shivered. "You can take the tray, I'm not hungry yet."  
  
“I would have liked to know,” Baze agreed. “I think I made an enemy of Master Sidhava. It’s alright, I know now.”  
  
"I don't think you did. Master Sidhava is a good man. He likes you, you know. And more than that, I think he trusts you."    
  
Baze sat down next to the bed and took the tray from Chirrut, setting it on the floor in easy reach and leaning back against the edge of the bed as he ate his soup, foregoing the spoon to sip directly from the bowl.  
  
“I feel like Nan-in and Alussa are making advances,” Baze observed, of their recently departed friends. He took another sip of soup, and then grinned. “Do you think we should lend them our copy of _The Book of Desire_ ?”  
  
"Certainly not, we'd never see it again," Chirrut said, and gave a little shiver. He tried wriggling onto his side in order to curl up in a tighter ball, but he couldn't move too much while keeping his head still. "I think giving him a hard time is how she flirts."  
  
“Reminds me of someone else I know,” Baze said, finishing his soup, and setting aside the empty bowl. Baze felt Chirrut’s shiver translated through the frame of the cot, and then he recovered a couple of the extra blankets he so cherished from the chair and the top of the dresser, spreading them over Chirrut before he crawled in beside him and wrapped himself around Chirrut for warmth.

"How dare you," Chirrut said, but he was only too glad to melt into Baze’s warmth.

"Oohh," he said slowly, feeling the tension run out of him. His whole body knotted up when he had vertigo episodes, but as he nestled up against Baze, he felt himself relaxing. "Thanks."  
  
“Let me know when you’re hungry,” Baze said. “You need to keep your strength up for the renewed acolyte assault when they’re satisfied you’re better.”  
  
Chirrut chuckled softly.

"Not sure I’m hungry. I'd like to drink the tea before it's cold," he said, and tried moving his head—only to feel the world slip out from under him. He complained, "Ugh. Nope. Not yet. Ugh. They don't always last this long.”  
  
“Seemed like this one was pretty bad,” Baze said, rubbing Chirrut’s shoulder—he could feel how tense Chirrut’s body was, like he’d been completely wrung out. “I’m glad to know they aren’t all. Though I have to appreciate that at least something can get you to sit still.”  
  
Chirrut laughed aloud. "The rest of you deserve the occasional break, I suppose."  
  
Baze pressed a kiss to the back of Chirrut’s neck, and then hesitated. “Was it something like this that convinced you we were each other’s destiny?”  
  
"No," Chirrut answered, and then—

"Well. Yes. Sort of. I mean, part of it was just how you felt when I met you," he said carefully. "And, ah. When you _left_ , I—got a vision. That. That if you left, you'd come back hurt."

And Baze had indeed come back hurt.  
  
"But—but you've always been in my visions," Chirrut felt it was safe to admit, now, or else dishonest not to. "There's always a bright figure with me, in most of them—just as you appear to me now, in the Force. The only part that makes sense, usually."

He swallowed. "The only other figure so bright is a—girl. I haven't met her, yet. And I've only seen her once or twice."  
  
Baze digested this slowly, considering what it meant—in some ways, it was reassuring to know that there was some basis for all the talk of destiny and fate. In others, it unsettled Baze a little. He wasn’t really sure he wanted to know the future. It meant he’d be distracted from now—from his time here, with Chirrut.  
  
Who would want to know if the Temple was going to burn down, but not when? Not why? Baze was uncertain how to feel about it—or about the notion of his own future given by Chirrut. Could he defy it, or would the Force just return him—violently, if necessary?  
  
Instead, Baze huffed out a breath. All he said was, “If you fall in love with her I’ll have to fight her to the death, you know.”  
  
"Baze, don't you trust me?" Chirrut asked, appalled, but grinning. "She's a young girl. She may not even be born yet. Also she's not my destiny."  
  
“I don’t trust you not to charm the pants off anyone you meet,” Baze told him. “But I’m glad she’s not your destiny.”  
  
Chirrut smiled.

"I can't help that," he said, and found Baze's fingers and squeezed them, and murmured, "I love you, my friend. Brother. Thank you.”

Baze curled around Chirrut, kissing the back of his neck. Baze was warm, and soothed Chirrut. He felt his heartbeat slow until it matched Baze’s steady rhythm. His head stopped hurting, slowly, and his ears stopped ringing. When he felt tired, now, it was because he was exhausted from hurting, but no longer felt any pain. He pulled Baze’s arm around his middle, against his stomach, and linked their fingers together.After a few minutes:

"Okay. I'm going to drink my tea," Chirrut said, getting an arm underneath himself.  
  
Baze let Chirrut sit up in his own time and under his own power—he knew how fast he wanted to go and in what direction. His contribution was to steady Chirrut, and then reach down and get the tea, guiding his hands to it when he reached out.  
  
“You should stay in, in the morning,” Baze suggested, mildly, testing Chirrut’s reaction. He forged on when it wasn’t immediately averse. “We could sleep in together. I’m sure no one will mind if we agree to work extra when you feel better.”  
  
Baze's hand on his back was soothing, not hovering. It felt good, and if he didn't move too much he could lift his head up, and the tea was still warm, if not hot.

The idea of lying in bed with Baze, just like this, late into the next day, was sorely tempting.  
  
"I don't want them to worry if I don't go," Chirrut said. He so rarely missed morning prayers. But he patted Baze's chest, as though this could tell him what he was feeling, and nodded once. "Okay. We'll sleep in.”  
  
“Thank you,” Baze said, yawning a little. “I think you gave me a fright that aged me five years.”  
  
"I know, I'm sorry. You're so good to me," Chirrut sighed. "But you are aware I had to get you back for scaring me nearly to death...several times."

He tried a few bites of rice while he was up, distantly aware that Baze reached over him to keep something from falling off the tray. He didn't mind.  
  
If Baze was honest, he probably would have been less anxious if the Temple had actually been on fire—then at least he would have known what actions to make. Baze leaned back against the wall as he let Chirrut finish his tea, watching his shoulders. He looked strong now, and Baze was surprised—not any different at all, really.  
  
Despite the fact that Baze knew he was unsteady and not feeling well, the warm glow of his presence still radiated outward. He still seemed to be more solidly _there_ in the world than a lot of other people, like he resonated specifically with Baze.  
  
Maybe that was what destiny meant. His thoughts slid away to the idea that he would—apparently—be a monk someday.  
  
“Chirrut, what does the Force feel like to you?” Baze wondered, idly.  
  
"The Force?" Chirrut repeated, patting Baze as he laid back down beside him. "It feels, well, like a current. Something electric, like—light. What I think light must look like. I told you. Lines. It also feels solid and safe. Like—you?"

Chirrut huffed softly. "It feels like I feel when I'm with you. Like I know I'm doing the right thing. Is that too much pressure?"

He threaded their fingers together.  
  
Baze considered this, intertwining his fingers with Chirrut’s. Could anything feel like that? Anything he couldn’t touch or connect to? He trusted that Chirrut meant what he said, but Baze felt nothing like that. Nothing outside of the physical certainty, anyway, that he liked where he was and he felt safe and connected to Chirrut. Grateful and comfortable and probably in love—in a real and true way he maybe didn’t previously feel was possible.  
  
Instead of admitting his uncertainty, he leaned over to press a kiss against Chirrut’s cheek. “Are you that certain?”  
  
His tone slipped a little lower, playful. “That you’re _doing_ the right thing?”  
  
"You brute," Chirrut laughed. "I don't feel the Force any better when we're having sex, if that's what you mean. Even if it _is_ sometimes a religious experience."

He stretched, and sighed, nestling back against Baze's warmth so that they were pressed close together.  
  
“Just checking,” Baze said, wrapping his arms around Chirrut’s middle, and setting his cup aside. “Maybe fishing for a compliment.”  
  
Chirrut might have slept like that, but something seemed to be bothering Baze, still. "Did, uh—did what I saw make you...does it upset you?"  
  
“I think if I said the idea of the Temple burning didn’t upset me, even I would have to think less of me,” Baze told Chirrut. “Some of it makes me uncertain. You said I was a brother but—I’m not sure I could do that. If I don’t—do that, what does that mean? Or do I have to, now that you’ve seen it?”  
  
Chirrut frowned. "Okay, uh." He coughed. "Here's where I get to sound like a really crazy person, because you're going to have to remind me—what I said," Chirrut told him carefully. "I—I really don't—remember. The Temple burned?"

Baze becoming a brother didn't startle him in the least, but the _Temple_ burning?  
  
“Yes,” Baze said, sighing out. “You were worried about the children... and Master Sidhava.”  
  
Baze tried to remember what else Chirrut had said, but it had all happened so fast and he’d been so anxious about it. “I didn’t really understand. How would it burn? It’s so cold here, and it’s made of stone...”  
  
Chirrut shivered, for once agreeing with Baze's assessment of the climate. "I—I don't know. Sometimes I misunderstand them, you know. It's hard to interpret a sense you don't have when you feel like someone keeps tipping the world on its side, and you're in pain and throwing up on your boyfriend."

Chirrut tried to chuckle, but let it out in a huff.

"The impressions are usually right, though. If I was scared—" he remembered being scared, "then it was probably bad. Usually, I—I remember the vision again when it—happens."  
  
Chirrut swallowed. "I'm sorry, I know I asked, but I don't want to talk about this anymore," he said, curling up tightly.

"I love you," he said, by way of saying 'good night,' even though it was probably closer to midday.  
  
Baze pulled Chirrut back against him, pulling the blankets up high around their shoulders, and resolved to let him sleep as long as he wanted—and if that wasn’t very long, to make him sleep even longer. He sighed out, and tried to let go of all the thoughts in his head as they buzzed around like busy hornets, stinging and sticking. He supposed he wasn’t going to get much rest.  
  
“I love you too,” Baze said, meaning it, as he felt Chirrut’s breathing begin to even out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whups! Sorry forgot to post this yesterday!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! We hope you enjoyed enough to subscribe to the series, leave a comment, or both!

Chirrut suffered himself to be cooped up for one day only because Baze was such a good kisser. When he heard the call to prayer the morning after, he was up immediately, scrambling out of bed and into clothes as quickly as he was able. Baze, who was _ born old _ , apparently, followed slower.    
  
After prayer, the tiny initiates mobbed him until he followed them to their study room, where the "card" for him was laid out on the floor.    
  
"Did you use an entire nerf for this?!" Chirrut exclaimed as he felt it out, which made the children laugh, because it was clearly made out of papyrus, not vellum. And indeed, they had glued down rope into messages and symbols and pictures—these last he realized only belatedly, as it took him forever to realize that was a  _ sun _ not a  _ word _ . 

"This is beautiful. Beautiful enough to hang in our room!" he exclaimed, and the children tittered.    
  
"I  _ told  _ you Brother Baze sleeps in Master Chirrut's room," said a small voice.    
  
"How come  _ I _ don't get to sleep in your room, Master Chirrut?" asked another, sounding quite pitiful.    
  
And while Chirrut was busy talking himself out of that one, Master Sidhava came to stand beside Baze. 

"I did not get the chance to thank you for your help, yesterday and the day before," he said quietly, and he wasn't smug about having startled the ex-mercenary only because being smug would not befit his station.  
  
Baze, having had his eyes on Chirrut and the children fondly, took a moment to compose himself after his upward start. He tore his eyes away to look respectfully at Master Sidhava,  who looked like he was—trying to suppress a smile?  
  
“I made kind of a mess of things,” Baze admitted, tucking his hands behind his back and unconsciously falling into a military rest; as if he were under inspection by a superior officer. _This isn’t so different, is it?_ “I’m sorry I reacted so badly. I’m sorry I spoke sharply to you. I can take extra duties...”  
  
Sidhava held up a hand, silencing him.  

"I said I wanted to thank you. If you erred, it was on the side of compassion, which is no error. You are—a very good man, Baze Malbus," the Master said, sounding a bit perplexed about it. "When you came to us a thief, I was as hopeful as Chirrut—and when you left us, I was just as disheartened. And yet you returned, out of the fire as it were, a new man, and still  _ good _ ."   
  
He rocked on his heels. "And now you are in Chirrut's visions again, not as a thief, not as a slave, not even as his soulmate—remind me to tell you, sometime, what he told me about his soulmate when he was a child. And now you are in his Force Sight as a Guardian of the Whills, our highest Order."   
  
If Sidhava was perplexed, Baze was downright  _ confused _ about the whole idea. His hand tightened around the opposite wrist, invisible but grounding.   
  
“Sir, I—” Baze began, and then he wondered if he’d insult the man by asking questions or trying to deny it. “I don’t understand.”   
  
It was better to admit that much than to ask any questions that might imply he just doesn’t believe—because he doesn’t. How could he be a Guardian if the Force didn’t feel like a steady thing in his life, or like a guiding hand or a safety net or...like it was there at all in any way he could sense? That was the sort of thing that belonged to such people as Chirrut.    
  
“You might ask yourself a few questions, but there's probably only one that matters. And maybe it answers many questions." Sidhava turned to face Baze, but Baze stared straight ahead. "Do you trust Chirrut?"    
  
“Of course I do,” Baze admitted. He had never seen Chirrut take a wrong turn. He was confident and genuine and—well, some of that was probably that Baze had been in love with him from practically the first time they’d met.    
  
Sidhava leaned close, as if confiding something scandalous. "I do, too. Some days I trust him more than I trust the Force, and I wonder if I'm being blasphemous or if he's just that good—as a kind of weather vane." 

Then Sidhava frowned and drew back. "He told you what he saw the day you left, didn't he? Or did Nan-in or Alussa tell you?"   
  
“No,” Baze said. “I didn’t know he’d—that it had happened when I left.”   
  
He sighed out, glad to know that there weren’t any lasting effects if this had happened before, all that time ago. He looked at Sidhava, at the confiding air the man was projecting, and his fingers got even tighter around his wrist—he has a suspicion that he either won’t believe it, or won’t like it.    
  
"He's mostly embarrassed about it, as you've seen. He knew you would come back," Sidhava began. "That you would find no freedom in running away. That you would be hurt when you returned. Alussa told me that this was what he said, the next day, with tears in her eyes. She said he had begged them to go after you, to stop you." 

Baze made a face—it did upset him, but not necessarily because of the idea that the future was a fore-ordained thing that you could peer into, but because the whole thing seemed overwhelming.  

Sidhava held up a hand to forestall anything: "I'm not telling you this to make you feel guilty, or to frighten you. But when the Force shows him things, they are usually right. If you are wearing a Guardian's sash when our Temple falls...I am comforted in the thought that you will be there for us."   
  
“Why show him?” Baze wondered, and then shook his head—it was the past, unchangeable. The future—couldn’t also be unchangeable, could it? “If we’re all on rails run by the Force, why show him at all?”   
  
"We can't blame the messenger, though sometimes I want to.” Sidhava turned, facing the holy kyber statues by the doors. 

“What good is it for me to know that my Temple, our people, have an expiration date?” he mused. “Maybe it's so I can prepare myself and accept it. Maybe it's so I can try to change it, to fight it, to make it not come true. Maybe it's a part of something bigger, and greater. We are all of us insignificant in the galaxy. But in the Force we are part of something much greater than ourselves."    
  
Baze found his hands forming into fists behind his back and shook them loose. “Sir, I—I don’t feel the Force. I trust Chirrut, I don’t think he’s lying and I believe that maybe, out there, the Force is real. But I no more feel it guiding me than I believed in the Empire’s ideals. How could I possibly be a Guardian if I’m just as blind to it as he is to the world?”   
  
Sidhava shrugged, answering that question with another: "Maybe he relies on us as much as we rely on him? How does he do what you and I consider to be simple, everyday tasks with no sight?" 

When Baze said nothing, Sidhava smiled and answered his own question: "With a great deal of practice, a lot of help from you and I, and a thoroughly unsafe amount of faith."   
  
Quietly, Baze considered this. He could navigate with the assistance of his friends, and with Chirrut’s help, as a blind man might in a world that was so dependant on vision. Groping around without understanding what it was he was supposed to be experiencing—like when Chirrut asked him about the colors of things.   
  
It seemed far too big to treat like a lost sense. Did they all feel it, and he never would? It made sense—Baze was hardly the result of a life devoted to the study and understanding of the ways of the Force, of striving at all times for enlightenment.   
  
“I don’t know that I could do that,” Baze said. “The future he saw connected to that was terrifying. He—he was screaming. If I don’t, If I refuse—will it not happen?”    
  
"Maybe that's not the important question." Sidhava shook his head, and, as if he had fulfilled his cryptic advice quota for the day, turned and moved on to other duties.   
  
"Brother Baze," came a shout from somewhere around his knees, and there was a tug on his robe. The little boy waited until Baze bent down to lift him into his arms before asking, very solemnly, "Are you going to marry Master Chirrut? And if not, will you be my boyfriend?"   
  
“Hmm,” Baze thought aloud, balancing the boy against his hip. “I haven’t asked him. I’m not sure he’d say yes.”   
  
In all honesty, Baze hadn’t considered it—not that he was unhappy or didn’t want to spend the forseeable future with Chirrut. It was just that—well, he was uncomfortable with the idea of too much forseeable future. But that wasn’t the sort of burden for a boy this age.   
  
“Do you think I should?”    
  
"No," the child said, without hesitation. "You should be my boyfriend." 

As Baze tried not to laugh, the child looked thoughtful. "You might need to wait until I'm taller. So you can be Master Chirrut's boyfriend until then. Are we gonna do more forms today?"   
  
“When you’re as tall as Chirrut we’ll talk about it again,” Baze chuckled, giving him a grin that suggested, perhaps, he had a better idea of how that might change over the future—but he didn’t argue. “I think so. If not with both of us, then I think I can help with some of the basic ones. Chirrut! Are we doing forms today?”   
  
"Of course we are," Chirrut answered, "We have to make up for our lesson that was cut short."

The young acolytes cheered and scrambled out of their outer robes in anticipation. 

"No, no, not yet—you still have to copy your—Oh very well, come on," he said, clutching his tapestry of a get well card carefully as he sighed.   
  
Baze set his charge down on the ground to join the other students in getting ready for forms, leaning his shoulder briefly against Chirrut’s to let him feel the shrug as he confided, “At least this way they may sit still while they copy later? Do you want me to take that back to our room? Watch out for the feisty one, he may try to fight you for my hand in—for my honor, apparently. “

Chirrut laughed. 

"Teevno, are you giving Brother Baze trouble, again?" he scolded, putting his hands on his hips, and intentionally pointing his body in entirely the wrong way so that Teevno, somewhere off to his left, could giggle shrilly.  Then he pawed at Baze. "No, no, just set it down, we'll take it up later. They'll eat me alive without you here to make it fun. All right, who remembers what number we got to last time?"   
  
A chorus of numbers answered, some preposterous, others closer to where they’d actually left off, as Baze set the oversized get-well tapestry—adorned with scraps of fox fabric, he made note to mention that later—someplace it wouldn’t get stepped on or damaged.   
  
“We could start with one again?” Baze suggested, trying to find harmony in his turbulent thoughts. 

The kids groaned in unison.   
  
“Well, then I believe we were at form sixty two,” he prompted.    
  
"That sounds about right," Chirrut said. "Who can come up front and practice form sixty-two for me?" he asked, and one tall gangly girl came up to the front and struck a pose. 

"Is it alright if I touch you?" Chirrut asked—he always asked, except for Baze, Nan-in, and Alussa.

She answered with a loud "Yep!"    
  
He laid a hand on the top of her head, ran it down her back and over her arms, and when he got to them, corrected her feet a tiny bit. "Perfect. Everyone follow Akta!" 

He waited and assumed the pose himself, starting back at sixty and bringing it forward and up into sixty-two so he could remember where he was and shouted “Sixty-three! We call this one High Pat on Horse."    
  
"What's a horse?"    
  
"It's like a nerf, dummy!"    
  
"Bhooma. Only those who think they have all the answers are the fools," Chirrut scolded, this time a bit more seriously. "A horse is a tall draft animal. They live mostly in Rim planets where they farm. They can also race. They have some where I am from." 

Suddenly, Chirrut brought his foot up. "Now right heel kick up! Sixty-four! Keep your balance!"   
  
"Sixty-four!" they echoed, with tiny punches of breath as they kicked their feet out. Several of them fell over with the effort.   
  
Baze corrected a couple others gently, asking and receiving permission to touch before he adjusted a foot or hand, sometimes in a slightly silly way before showing them the correct position.    
  
“Are we getting on the horse now?” Baze wondered, as Chirrut kept his leg up until they all had the position correctly.   
  
The children giggled, clearly entertained by this notion. Baze isn’t sure how big the animals are, but the idea of riding something as short as a nerf was pretty entertaining, too. They went back and forth between the two forms a few times, switching at times to ones they’d learned before, too—just to keep the kids on their toes.   
  
“Vine tiger,” Baze prompted, when Akta lagged trying to match a number up in her memory. Sixty four was a lot to remember!    
  
"Well done, well done!" Chirrut said, when they got to sixty-five, and he stopped them. "Well done, everyone. Who's hungry for lunch?"    
  
"ME!" the children shouted, and scurried off, leaving Chirrut alone with Baze.    
  
Chirrut smiled as he tugged himself into Baze, his rock. 

"Thank you for your help, brother of my heart. Can we hang up our new tapestry before we go eat?" he asked, tapping his stick around for the wayward papyrus.   
  
Baze recovered it, passing it back to Chirrut carefully, his thoughts overwhelming him the instant he stopped moving. He fell into step beside Chirrut as he followed along, trying to have an idea of his own future, of what it might mean to have the one that Chirrut had seen, or to fight against it.    
  
“You know,” he said, after a moment. “They really care about you. There are scraps of fox fabric on your get well card, and I think Master Epan Se might argue those would make better patches.”   
  
His voice was distant, however, even as he held the door for Chirrut to enter.    
  
"Aww, really?" Chirrut asked, laying it out on the bed to feel the soft fabric, and then turning his head up so Baze could see his smile. "You don't mind if we hang it up? It's not horribly ugly, is it?"    
  
“No,” Baze said, “It’s very heartfelt—perhaps not completely beautiful to the eye, but under your fingertips is what matters.”

"Great!" Chirrut said, hanging it to the wall with special pins that went into the mortar, but he faltered, a bit, as Baze waited at the door. Chirrut felt some discomfort in him. "Baze, i-is something the matter?"   
  
Baze hesitated, and then supposed he’d best out with it. “If—if I don’t become a Guardian, or I can’t, will they allow me to stay?”   
  
"Of course they will," Chirrut said, and managed to hold back on the 'But you can, and you're going to, aren't you?' He didn't remember his vision very well now, but he was pretty sure he remembered Master Sidhava saying something about Baze as a Guardian. Chirrut crossed the room to him, fumbling for Baze's worn hands. "What has you worried? Did one of the children say something?”   
  
“Master Sidhava did,” Baze revealed. “But I’m not sure I’m—I can’t feel the Force.”    
  
Baze sighed out, squeezing Chirrut’s hands. “I can feel you, you’re real and solid. I can feel the floor, or the grip of a blaster. I know I should have faith but it’s...”   
  
Hard to say, it seemed. Baze tried to get his thoughts to line up, but they’d been chasing each other around in circles all day. He shook his head. “To you, it’s a warmth, a solid presence. To me it’s the idea that I can’t change my future and I don’t know why. And now, suddenly it’s—a terrible future, perhaps. I know you said you don’t want to talk about it. I’m just not certain I’m cut out for this.”   
  
"Baze," Chirrut breathed out, and reached up to cup his cheek, feel the scar tissue that still knotted under his eye, having never fully healed from his time as a slave. With a gentle tug, he drew him inside, and sat them on the cot.    
  
"Not everyone feels the Force when they enter the Temple, you know," he said softly. "Nan-in didn't. Many of the children don't—and some never do. We take in orphans, often, you know. Not just ones who voluntarily dedicate themselves to the Force. As long as they decide to stay, they earn their keep, learn our teachings—our wisdoms and our forms and our prayers—and go on, well, faith. Their lives are no less rich. The Force doesn't speak to everyone the same way."   
  
Baze made a noise that suggested he knew these facts, but that it still didn’t quite sit well with him. He put his arms around Chirrut, then, however, and felt him solid and warm, a calm center to his raging storm.   
  
“I still,” Baze began, and then shook his head. “I suddenly feel like a prisoner. Can I stop what you saw? Can anyone? It’s frightening to think my life is a script I only have to play out.”    
  
"It's—it's not like that," Chirrut tried, sensing Baze's unease, and even sharing it in part. 

"You're not a prisoner, you—you're  _ free _ ," he insisted, eyes brimming because he knew how Baze felt when he was  _ not _ free, and Chirrut would rather be bereft of Baze altogether than ever feel him hurting like that. Chirrut shrugged. "Our texts say that the future is always in motion. It's always changing. It's possible I just never had anyone in my life who's powerful enough to change what I see happening. But maybe we are all locked into playing our parts. Or maybe we can choose not to fulfill our destinies. I've never been brave enough to consider it."   
  
Baze leaned back, taking this in. It was a lot of maybes. He thought he should feel like there was plenty of time to think about it; the sort of mystery you could ponder forever. He leaned in and kissed Chirrut’s forehead.   
  
“If I went away again, would the Force bring me back, like the last time?” he wondered. The corner of his mouth turned up a little. “I wonder what lesson that was supposed to teach me? Perhaps to sit still and appreciate the good things I have?”   
  
"Not like last time," Chirrut said fiercely. He added, more quietly, lowering his head, "I think—I am  _ sure _ —the only further suffering in your life happens if you stay with me." 

Baze sighed. “I don’t think there’s an answer we can know, but I wonder if I’ll have any peace in my thoughts until I try.”   
  
"I don't blame you for wanting to leave," Chirrut added, more quietly, trying to be brave, though everything in him was screaming at him to hold onto Baze and never let go. He couldn't get everything he wanted. He was never going to stop being the selfish brat of a senator's son.   
  
Baze sighed, pulling Chirut closer against him, shaking his head. “I don’t want to leave  _ you _ , I just don’t want....”   
  
He hesitated, trying to feel the words out ahead of himself, to express what he really means by all this. He pressed a kiss to Chirrut’s cheek.   
  
“I don’t want to ever question if I’m here, with you, because I want to be or because I’m made to be,” Baze said. “I just want to go far enough that it’s my choice to come back—but I don’t want to leave forever. I’m not sure that makes sense.”    
  
"It is, it does," Chirrut said, his voice thick as he imagined getting used to a life without Baze again—even if it may not be for forever. "And it is good and noble and more right than anything else I have ever heard." 

Chirrut sniffed. "I should like to be...chosen by you. Not—whatever—" he gestured, unable to finish.    
  
"So I understand. But forgive me if I do not like it." He laughed wetly, and wiped his eyes. "I am not very good at not getting my way," he admitted.   
  
Baze curled his hands beneath Chirrut’s chin and tilted it up, pressed a kiss against each of his eyelids that brushed the wetness of tears away. He ran his rough thumbs over Chirrut’s smooth cheeks, and assured him.   
  
“I’m pretty sure I’d choose you anyway,” Baze said. “It’s not like a family or home calls me back to anywhere else, and if you can resist the siren-song of rich life, I’m sure I can.”   
  
He’d wink, but the gesture would be lost. Likely, if Baze left, he’d be back to mercenary work, hardly the rich living waiting at home for Chirrut.    
  
Chirrut sniffed, and laughed again, and pushed his fist across his eyes. 

"Remind me not to take you to visit my parents until you've chosen, then. My mother might try to kill you for toying with her baby boy's emotions like this." He huffed again, and then shook his head.    
  
“She’s likely to take one look at me and try to kill me anyway,” Baze grumbled. “At least it would be an honorable death.”   
  
Chirrut laughed. 

"Oh, no, she'd do it assassin style, make it seem an accident," he said, only half-joking, and then he sighed."No, you're right. Right to question, to yearn. You make me wonder why I have never questioned. Why I have always...accepted."

He frowned deeply, now asking a series of 'whys' about his own life that at least got him off the depressing thought of Baze leaving again.   
  
"Maybe I shall meditate instead of taking the midday meal." He stood. "I will see you after?" 

He grasped Baze's robe, gripped by a sudden fear. "Just— _ please _ do not leave without saying goodbye, again?"   
  
“No, of course not,” Baze said. “I’m telling you now where my thoughts are. If I decide I have to follow them, I’ll let you know that, too.”   
  
"Good." Chirrut let go his robe.   
  
Baze stood up too, stretching. “I’ll sneak you back some rolls, Chirrut. If I don’t, Alussa will be angry with me for driving you away from a meal.”   
  
Chirrut found himself laughing again and patted his stomach, like he had a gut instead of a six-pack. "She knows how much I eat. One day of meditative fasting won't kill me."   
  
“You, no,” Baze said, reaching up to wipe the last signs of distress away from Chirrut’s eyes. “Your friends killing  _ me _ , that’s a possibility.”   
  
As he passed, Baze reached up to trail his fingers over the tapestry the children had made, letting his fingers find the rough rope, running over the loops and coils and wondering if fate looked more like that than rail lines.    
  


**Author's Note:**

> ****  
>  [ 5\. If You Love, Love Openly](http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/zenindex.html)
> 
> Twenty monks and one nun, who was named Eshun, were practicing meditation with a certain Zen master.
> 
> Eshun was very pretty even though her head was shaved and her dress plain. Several monks secretly fell in love with her. One of them wrote her a love letter, insisting upon a private meeting.
> 
> Eshun did not reply. The following day the master gave a lecture to the group, and when it was over, Eshun arose. Addressing the one who had written to her, she said: "If you really love me so much, come and embrace me now."


End file.
